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Today I was on call. Ok, I've been on-call since Sunday 12:01 am, but today I spent down in the data center answering questions that I would rather not have been asked, as opposed to sitting at my desk being asked questions that I would rather not have been asked...

I had forgotten the power cord for my laptop, and about IMed one of our students to get him to bring me one. (Ah, students, the slave labor of Universities everywhere.) Anyway, he told me he would be down there around 2. I had a 2nd battery on me, so that was ok. The first battery died at 11:56am. I reached down to get the 2nd battery, and upon pulling it out, discovered it had no charge. This is the same battery I have been grabbing for 2 months, and each time it has had no charge. (You would think that I would learn a lesson from this, but even now, 10 hours later, and the battery is still in my backpack, dutifully waiting the time when it can be used, uncharged. It's a sad, lonely life for that battery.)

Not having the power cord, and no juice, I figured it was a good time to go for a walk. I walked to the food court, but the slight hunger I had did not overpower the aversion to standing in the long line. I turned around and went to the bookstore. I have been waiting for some time for them to get me some IP addresses together so that I can enable a firewall. Their IT staff is being run for the next couple of weeks by students. The 2 guys I normally work with are on vacation. The urge to eat had still not overtaken me, so I went to the library. I didn't see any books that grabbed me, but then I wassn't looking all that hard, I have plenty waiting to be read right now. I went to see the Library IT guys to talk to them about some changes I plan to make in a couple of months, but they weren't there. (They weren't on vacation, just somewhere else. That's what I get for wandering around during lunchtime.)

After that, I figured I still had 30 minutes before I got power (it's only a 30 minute round trip walk to my office and back, for some reason I didn't think of that.) and I went back to the food court. This time the lines were much shorter, and I got a crunchwrap from Taco Bell. It used to be a Taco Bell express, and they didn't have crunchwraps, but times have changed, and they appear to be all grown up now.

I went back to the data center, my power cord arrived, and I went back to doing my real work while at the same time pretending to help down there.